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Thanks to everyone who cam out tonight it was a blast, the teamwork was spot on and we used all assets at our disposal very well. Thank you to everyone who SL and FTL during the night thanks for stepping up.

This night OP was a lot of fun to bad one of the objectives was bugged.

I love that [MENTION=116522]Evanovich[/MENTION] has an MX-SW. Nearly everyone was running so low on ammo by the time we took this group photo. I think I had a mag and a half left of the 16 I started out with. We fought up and down the West road for way too long for that missing suitcase :)

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Great action for Tac Tuesday. We had close to 15 players, perhaps a couple more, and all were on for a long time. Many were new or newer and it's so nice to see new players jumping in with the same mindset and approach that makes our little corner of the ARMA world so satisfying.

I was in on 3 operations. For two I carried a Titan AT launcher and for the last I carried the CSAT Navid 9.3 mm, the heaviest MG in the ARMA arsenal.

My last op for the night had me tasked as FTL for a heavy MG squad. We had myself, an ammo bearer, a marksman and a medic. Our job was to provide overwatch and a base of fire for the two friendly assault teams as they moved into Abdera. We were heavily engaged for much of the operation and provided suppression and direct fire on enemy positions. We interdicted enemies approaching the assault teams a number of times, helping secure the town of Abdera.

One lesson learned -- constantly monitor your security. We had an excellent perch North of Abdera with firing lanes on two enemy held areas. We shifted from one to the other as necessary. At one point our team, down to three, were suppressing to the South while friendlies assaulted. Suddenly I noticed my marksman go down just behinds us and immediately called for retreat to the east to assess the threat. As soon as we turned around we ran into the point element of a large enemy squad. They had come up from our North investigating the sounds of battle. The other trooper went down after taking one out, leaving me alone. I threw an rgn, killed one enemy then opened up with the wildly inaccurate Navid. I killed one more before his mates cut me down. I was left watching the remainder of the enemy troops form up into a large wedge and move out towards our friendlies to the South.

I had been checking our flanks periodically and we even bagged a rifleman approaching from the North but I didn't see anyone else at the time. Troops in town were in a firefight and my team became engrossed in supporting them but I lost sight of a key and basic tenet of small unit ops...maintain security at all times ! ! This I know of course but it was a humbling reminder to remember in the future.

A big highlight for me came during an operation to destroy a power plant NW of Kavala. As my team was moving into position above the target as I was passing another team moving in a different direction. I don't know who was leading it but most of the team were new comers and I heard one rifleman say to the other "lets bound in twos, you guys first... call set when you are ready". I keyed my mic on teamspeak and said to Dimi how awesome it was to see newcomers really embrace our play style and approach. I'm hoping it was our influence anyways. That is a little thing in a way but also a big thing too. To me it means management of the ARMA game at TG is working as intended. Our vision is actually being realized. The work of the GO, the admin team and the regular player base is paying real dividends.

The only bummer of the night...One of the JIP's came in as an attack pilot and attacked the AO around the power plant without coordinating with anyone on the ground. I was marching across a field, ordering men into a line position for an advance and that guy cut us all down in a devastating strafing run. No apology, no comment and no love for the TG playstyle. Funny how those two scenarios happened on the same night.

Thanks for excellent leadership as always Noy and Dimi. Was someone else in command at one time? Looking forward to next Tuesday already.

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The gaming marathon was awesome. A few moments where I was a bit frustrated with some of the players (especially one of our regular). But overall we gained some great new peeps who appreciated our style of gameplay. Some of them were repeat joiners.

As the mission editor who injected the logistics side of things to the mission I am interested in the feedback of the gameplay ideology the mission forces upon the players. I will itemize them individually and give my thoughts and observations on how these enforcements affected the gamplay from my point of view. I know there are oppositions and different viewpoints and ideas. I am all ears.

Limitation of scoped sights: - Only Fireteam leaders, SLs and the MMG heavy gunner had access to ARCOs. Marksmen had enough toys to engage from even greater distances (DMS, NightStalker). Everybody else had a choice between ACO and iron sights. Listing my logic and observation which led to this enforced design is as follows:

Many of our firefights became long distance from a hill somewhere where line of infantry is shooting down into the AO without the necessity of maneuver and movement. A lot of times were spent sniping the AI who are trying to maneuver on us from afar against our superior scopes. While AI suppresses and maneuvers, we sit and snipe.

Bullet expenditure. We go out with backpack full of ammo and often come back with very little spent. We seldom run into situations of being out of ammo, redistributing ammo, needing for resupply logistics.

The role of a marksman becomes little when everybody else in your squad has the same reach as you. Marksman role went extinct in our mission designs and unit makeups.

The fact that many of the roles became dual purpose, thus, distracting them from doing their job. Grenadier/Sniper medics, AT carrying Machine gunners, full battle gear pilots.

My Thoughts and Observations:Yesterday and day before yesterday's gameplay showed some of these did work. I found myself often on one or two mags when I was RTB-ing. Instead of precision shots, I saw people unloading a full mag into a distance target to get them down. I saw usage of binocs to spot for the MG who is using iron sights, meaning more teamwork. I noticed people complaining about their sights, especially when tasked with over-watching from a hill, which is fine. I saw one or two instances of people looting enemy scopes. I know a few people who enjoy the default loadouts. I know some who enjoy running with the close range sights. I enjoy both iron sights (ability to zero gun) and close range sights so much more than scoped ones. There is a deal of great satisfaction when killing a target with these sights.

Medical revive timer changes - A greater gap between how much time a soldier revives against how much time a medic revives was introduced. Medics are so much faster (1/10th) when it comes to reviving. It is now ~60 sec against ~10secs. The change is due to the following observations:

Medic role became less significant in people's view after the introduction of soldier being able to revive if they have FAKs.

Stabilization function is not really used.

My Thoughts and Observations: We used to enforce only medics to be able to revive. This system proved to be frustrating as, when the medic dies everybody dies, thus taking out medic as any type of combat unit. Medics cowered and hid all the time making their experience less fun. Then I have changed it so that soldiers with FAKs can revive but with a little more time spent. What I thought was that medics now can be real combat unit, fighting alongside the soldiers. But I heard a few complaints that medics are not as appreciated or utilized. Everybody keeps reviving each other. I saw the change in revive duration times to be very effective. Medics were treated first after a mass casualty. And the soldiers, for the most part left the reviving to the medics once they realized how inefficient they are. In terms of stabilization, I have not noticed much difference. But I noticed that soldiers were focused on fighting rather than recovering, which is a good behavior. Win the fight first.

HALO requiring backpack abandonment - HALO option requires the player to abandon their backpack if they want to use the convenience of HALO. They are required to pick up a parachute on their back. Once jumped there is a cool-down timer before the next HALO is available. This change is due to the following observations:

Pilots were almost never used. Transport pilot role became less significant due to everybody just jumping into the AO with backpack full of gear.

Since all can jump, JIPs lonewolved, gets killed, respawns and jump in again within 5 minutes.

My Thoughts and Observations: Bit of a double edged sword. The effect of the enforcement was clear. A lot of guys without backpack running light. They ran out of ammo and had to turn to either enemy weapons or their assistants for more ammo. On the other hand, roles like Medics, AAR, AAT s are not able to take advantage of this as they cannot do their job without a backpack. This reminds that in the next version there is a way to deploy arsenal to the field. Hopefully, we will get in the habit of setting up a FOB and packing it up when we RTB. Another effect I noticed was more utilization of pilots. Soldiers are now much more willing to wait for a transport pilot to get inserted with their backpacks. While others who can, did jump in to get into the action faster.

Backpack camps/sleeping bags - Anybody can pick up a sleeping bag or a tent to deploy a forward spawn point. Sleeping bag is only for that player who deploys it, while tent is everybody who is near him when he deploys it.

A new feature which I discovered recently.

Gives alternative to backpack full of ammo.

My Thoughts and Observations: I used the camp tent everytime I led. Coupled with some support vehicles, such as Ammo Truck full of infantry ammo, this works very well to alleviate the frustration of redeploying all the way from base after a wipeout. What I noticed was, once a wipeout happens where every member of the team is down and a full respawn is ordered, the thought of redeploying all the way from base discouraged players so much that the game ends by people disconnecting, leaders quitting (including myself). A respawn tent near the AO allowed us to deploy, gear up from the ammo truck and try again without having to organize another deployment. There were a few bugs I noticed with this system. It is BIS native and I think a few script based fixes would iron out these bugs. I do love the system. This also forced me to be backpack free after I deployed it and went into the fights.

Sorry for the long read. As for a real AAR, one firefight stood out for me. We were finished with the first AO and was retreating to a mini FOB we setup to RTB. It was about 6-8 of us. Right on top of the FOB, there was a NATO team which Noyava spotted and let us know. We lined up and got ready for a close range firefight as we approached our FOB. What ensued was a glorious, intense, and super quick firefight. I appreciated our ACOs then. They were in our faces and we were in theirs. 8 man NATO squad against us. Quick commands of flanks to utilize the 50 cal on an ifrit nearby, guys shouting man down, and constant small arms gunfire was very immersive. I took down 2 guys who were 50 meters away. We only lost Noyava, but we fought on to make sure we won the firefight, before getting him back up. 20-30 seconds of massive outburst and then everything went silent. Ooooh that was satisfying. May be because we won the firefight.

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[LIST][*]Limitation of scoped sights: - Only Fireteam leaders, SLs and the MMG heavy gunner had access to ARCOs. Marksmen had enough toys to engage from even greater distances (DMS, NightStalker). Everybody else had a choice between ACO and iron sights. Listing my logic and observation which led to this enforced design is as follows:

Limiting scopes can have a really good effect on producing teamwork out of players that normally are not used to discipline. What I mean is, if your leader says only Marksman & TL have magnification that really should be all that is needed. These mission engineered limits work well when there is a good player count but severely limit a seeding population of 4 players from using such a mission. I don't think this is a serious problem since we certainly have other missions available for such a purpose.

You won't hear me complain about using iron sights even if it doesn't represent modern warfare much anymore. I might be in the minority on this and since we have mission options for variety this is no problem at all.

[*]Medical revive timer changes - A greater gap between how much time a soldier revives against how much time a medic revives was introduced. Medics are so much faster (1/10th) when it comes to reviving. It is now ~60 sec against ~10secs.....Then I have changed it so that soldiers with FAKs can revive but with a little more time spent...

Cool change. I don't mind the Medikit requirement at is adds a penalty of having to access the backpack of the medic as well.

[*]HALO requiring backpack abandonment - HALO option requires the player to abandon their backpack if they want to use the convenience of HALO. They are required to pick up a parachute on their back. Once jumped there is a cool-down timer before the next HALO is available.

Excellent requirement. This produces a good balance between convenience and having options for more gear. Perhaps some kind of scripted ammunition drop could be used in the absence of a pilot to shuttle out supplies.

[*]Backpack camps/sleeping bags - Anybody can pick up a sleeping bag or a tent to deploy a forward spawn point. Sleeping bag is only for that player who deploys it, while tent is everybody who is near him when he deploys it.

Interesting development I've missed. It might be better if it was available for anyone in that group instead of base on proximity to where that tent is deployed. Look forward to seeing this in action.

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Limitation of Scopes:
I love the style of play this mission encouraged last night. I have come to enjoy playing iron sights over the last couple months. The only vanilla rifle that requires an ACO/Holosight is the Mk20. :) The load out restrictions really helped people value other players in other roles. I loved hearing people spot and range enemies for *other* people to take down. I also enjoyed the effort we put into maneuvering into good fighting positions *before* engaging. Only wish we had working Zafir's for the AR though. That gun is the backbone of a CSAT fireteam, which put us at a disadvantage on a number of occasions. Having a dedicated MMG team helped on the last couple missions.

Medical revive timer changes:
I like where the med system is on this mission. The medic enjoys a significant advantage in reviving, so people deferred to that role whenever they could. But the medic didn't have to avoid combat at all cost either. I played Medic when B was leading the first couple missions and I saw plenty of action. Given my status as sole casualty in the final fire fight, maybe I saw too much action :)

Backpack camps/sleeping bags:
I like the idea behind this system. Based on my experience, the Tent spawn point works for anyone in the Squad if the SL deployed it. I dropped one during one of the missions I led and as long as JIPs joined the squad, then respawned (halo attempt gone wrong) they could respawn at the tent. On larger objectives setting up the FOB makes so much sense, especially when there isn't reliable helo transport available.

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Limited scopes have been a blast for me so far love the idea and makes for much more teamwork.

Medical system is definitely better I almost feel like we should take it further maybe a system where only the medic can revive others but anyone can revive the medic? I feel this would make it so as long as the medic is alive they will feel important and will be able to do there role however if they die it isn't a 100% failure. I don't know if this is possible but I think it would be good. Might have to look into this in my free time.

I am also very interested in the idea of starting to work with setting up FOB with ammo, assets and respawn even more if we try the mission with maybe 6 objectives instead of 4.

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I didn't touch on the equipment affecting the tactics but it certainly did affect the teamwork n a positive way. I also saw quite a few ranging targets for others. I only cheated once....I asked someone to grab a rangefinder for me while I was the heavy MG. Seems reasonable to me that someone setting up at range to provide overwatch would have a tool to determine the range. Maybe this should go with the assistant MG or the ammo bearer?

sigpic|TG-1st|GruntARMA Admin (retired) Pathfinder-Spartan 5

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I do not see that as cheating. I see that as using the equipment available to you in a reasonable manner. Especially if your ammo bearer is with you. That guys job is to be a rifle first, an ammo depot to you and a spotter if necessary.

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I didn't touch on the equipment affecting the tactics but it certainly did affect the teamwork n a positive way. I also saw quite a few ranging targets for others. I only cheated once....I asked someone to grab a rangefinder for me while I was the heavy MG. Seems reasonable to me that someone setting up at range to provide overwatch would have a tool to determine the range. Maybe this should go with the assistant MG or the ammo bearer?

I think Assistant MMG or AARs should ALWAYS have a range finder. Their number 1 job in combat is to spot targets, range, and call adjustments to the gunner (followed by checking flanks and six, and filling the surpession gap while gunner is reloading. I know the rangefinder is part of the default Arma3 AAR loadouts.

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Just a small point re the halo/halo thing. You wouldn't make that kind of insertion without a large pack to be honest as it speaks to inserting well behind enemy lines or some distance from a resupply source. If it's a limit imposed as a gameplay mechanic ie choice/reduce the tendency for players to pick insertion over more difficult infiltration fair enough.

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Just a small point re the halo/halo thing. You wouldn't make that kind of insertion without a large pack to be honest as it speaks to inserting well behind enemy lines or some distance from a resupply source. If it's a limit imposed as a gameplay mechanic ie choice/reduce the tendency for players to pick insertion over more difficult infiltration fair enough.

Definently I see it all the time with troops having backpacks on their chests when they HALO so it's not that reason but you nailed it with the purpose being that we would like to see more transportation methods used then everyone HALO every time.

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I was with you guys last night as the DMR on the Red Fireteam. I haven't played ARMA or with any of you TGers in a little while and while I personally had my rough moments, overall it was a really awesome experience.

Some quick feedback on B's points, plus a few of my own:

Role specific personal ammo box
A++, awesome way of allowing customization and also enforcing role duties, perfect middle path. This is the best 'kitting-out' implementation I've seen yet.

Medical revive timer changes + Backpack camps/sleeping bags
Also good moves in my opinion, keeping the game flowing is top priority in my opinion. I have seen what B is talking about where there is a mass quit mid-objective because of a long ride to the AO, avoiding that is key.

HALO requiring backpack abandonment
I like the idea but in practice I'm less sure how I feel on this. Keeping with the above, giving medics and other backpack-requiring kits a harder time to go from respwan->linkup seems like a harsh tradeoff for enforcing people to run less ammo/lighter. In other words I'm not so sure enforcing the idea that the HALO isn't 'free' is worth giving some players a longer 'rejoining squad' time. I fear that might hurt the natural teamwork that is so awesome when its in a groove. That said, it is awesome when you have a good pilot... but do you always?

Limitation of scoped sights:
I think this is a really good call. I have played in similar scenarios and I do agree it really promotes teamwork and gives a natural reason to carry out the role you slotted in as, which leads to teamwork. Keeping the number of high powered optics few really emphasizes to the player they are a team wide utility and not a vector to increase KDR. Making a DMR feel like sighting reports are their main job just by kit restrictions is awesome.

My experience with this last night brings me to a bit of a tangent though...

Teamwork is super important a good game.

Communication is super important to good teamwork.

The immersion triples when you report a sighting to your SL who pushes it over the net to a nearby team's SL who, with their team, organizes and reacts. Having any roll in equation is really fun. I feel like that kind of immersion, at some level, is why people are drawn to this community and this game.
The other night however we had a lot of instances where the Achilles heel in our teamwork was communications. I don't believe they were the fault of anyone in particular, more the VON system in ARMA.

Does anyone feel similar that the ARMA VON is holding us back? Maybe even if we just defaulted to TS for SL communications when there server is more full that could help. I like the idea of vanilla no mods but maybe *just* TFAR/ACRE2 to help alleviate some of these issues?

Would like to hear peoples feed back on this.

Thanks *SO* much to everyone who puts this stuff together, I really had a blast the other day and every time I'm on TG really.